Writer's Voices

Always teach by story, because stories lodge deep in the heart.

How I wish some public figures would do this. Just to see how it feels. for the next 24 hours refrain from criticizing anybody or anything.

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality

In this, their second co-authored book, the Wallaces turn their attention and years of research, to a young man, Jonathan Daniels, who sacrificed his life for the civil rights movement. Daniels became a hero in his hometown of Keene, NH, where the authors now live, but was little known to the outside world. As Caroline says in her quote of the day, from Ernest Hemingway, even adults need heroes, and this is someone to admire without any reservations.

I’ve written several dozen books – this is the one I’m most proud of.

I can’t think of a more gratifying way to use investigative journalism than to write books that can impact the world today and inspire young people…. to provide windows for readers to meet people that don’t necessarily look like them and see them in a human and personal way. Maybe that reader will be the policy maker or law enforcement officer of the future who will build bridges instead of barriers.”

As you get older, it’s more difficult to have heroes, but just as necessary

“I can no longer stay quiet in this world, I have a voice and I feel it reverberate off my internal walls, making its slow climb upward until its melody can be heard all around.”

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

She also shares her own parenting journey. Writing about your family can be touchy business, but Ruttenberg points out that most of the personal anecdotes make her look worse than her kids.

That’s exactly what Michael Bedar, certified spirtitual nutrition counselor and renowned speaker on topics of natural healing and wellness, does in his novel, “Sweet Healing: A Whole Health Journey.” In this book we have an everyday hero, Gene, who is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The story of how he deals with this shattering news, and discovers a path towards healing, has been compared to such tales as “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior” and “Celestine Prophecy.”

In her debut novel, ‘The Beautiful Possible,” Gottlieb spins a tale that is at heart both a love story and a spiritual journey, but with a deep historical context. From Nazi Germany to India, to the American suburbs,”The Beautiful Possible” spans the globe and the human condition.

Gottlieb has published short fiction and poetry widely and has received several distinguished awards for her writing.

In this interview, we learn about Michael’s writing process, how far ahead he plots, and why he gravitates towards the woman’s point of view. He cites the influence of his father as a great oral storyteller, and the inspiration of a high school teacher who lead this former jock, who had barely cracked a book, to a life in literature – both writing and teaching.

Michael is the founding director of Fairfield University’s low-residence MFA in Creative Writing and we also discuss the structure and benefits of that program for writers of all ages.

Before I start to write, I read everything I can about the subject….I read novels and nonfiction books… I tell students, you really want to know your own fictional landscape. Not just the physical landscape, but the psychological, the cultural and the political landscape.